Funny list; it looks like they tried very hard to please certain companies, because the Romeo (although it did have some nice extras) shouldn't be there IMO. It's been available almost constantly for years, so why should it be in this year's top 10? And Trojan Explosion instead of, for instance, the Keith Hudson comp? No Way. Of course, Tree of Satta should have been there too, and personally I'd rather put Motion's 'Funky Trip' on the list instead of Studio One Funk.

(dunno why psounds family havent rereleased some hitrun 12"s.. they (should) have the rights dont they?).. or is it possible they do it so that these things remain rare ?

something else.. on the back of starship africa it says "soundtrack from the forthcoming movie "starship africa" or something - did this ever come out? or did they just write it for a 'joke' like "another 1992 production" or whatever they say .. the music on that lp is pretty strange!!... some good tunes imo!

(dunno why psounds family havent rereleased some hitrun 12"s.. they (should) have the rights dont they?).. or is it possible they do it so that these things remain rare ?

something else.. on the back of starship africa it says "soundtrack from the forthcoming movie "starship africa" or something - did this ever come out? or did they just write it for a 'joke' like "another 1992 production" or whatever they say .. the music on that lp is pretty strange!!... some good tunes imo!

This year's re-release (included on the list above) was on Japanese CD with bonus cuts, not vinyl.

"Starship Africa" was first released on HitRun (in 1980, I think) and then re-released on On-U Sound (2 years later, I think). It has been re-released on CD 3 times (on "Historic Moments Vol.2" in 1995, on the On-U Sound Master Recordings series in the late 90s and this year in Japan) and most probably must have been re-pressed on LP a few times.

I don't think that anyone from On-U or Pressure Sounds still has the rights to the HitRun back catalogue, except their own releases on it (Creation Rebel etc.).

The "music from a forthcoming movie" was an eccentricity as you guessed. The whole album was a very experimental affair. If I remember correctly they overdubbed some old rhythms with new drum patterns from Style Scott and they were trying crazy things like playing music from one channel on reverse throughout a whole track etc.

Also the first two Creation Rebel dub/instrumental LPs were re-released on CD this year ("Dub From Creation" & "Rebel Vibrations" first released on CD as "Historic Moments Vol. 1"). I'm thinking of getting the latter as it features most of the Jammy-produced Creation Rebel LP "Close Encounters of the Third World" as bonus tracks including the original vocal version of the tune ("Know Yourself") that Prince Far I used for his "Quante Jubila".

A couple of corrections to Pluto's excellent breakdown of Creation Rebel's "Starship Africa" - it was originally released on Sherwood's 4D Rhythms label, not Hitrun, and despite what it says on the sleeve, I very much doubt that Prince Jammy had anything to do with the "Close Encounters..." LP.

i think jammys produced some of the original (and much mashed up) riddim tracks on it. just like when there is one flabba holt bass line on an on-u sound album he is credited with "bass" and very few specifics.

i believe i read the movie was actually slated to come out but like much "forthcoming" on-u sound stuff, never appeared.

Here are the liner notes by Steve Barker for this album (I knew I had saved them somewhere!):

In the On-U Sound discography "Starship Africa" may show up as the label’s eighth release in the late summer of 1982 but in fact the album was issued two years earlier as the only offering from the short-lived 4D Rhythms label. Appearing with quite beautiful artwork depicting an eclipse complete with full colour diamond corona, the album was presented, although perhaps not received, as a concept - something a little bit out of the ordinary from the usual dub reggae offerings of the time. The actual story goes something like this. Two years earlier, just after the completion of "Dub from Creation", the young Adrian Sherwood found himself with the basic Creation Rebel cutting a bunch of rhythms in the studio for a character with the wonderful name of DJ Superstar - a contemporary of the Mexicano, and also rapping on top of funked up reggae rhythms. Most of these tunes had bass lines from Tony Henry of Misty in Roots. Sherwood had hummed the bass lines and Tony has re-created them - hence the melodic quality of the bass lines on the finished tracks, one of which can be discerned as a reworking of Bim Sherman’s "My Woman".What happened to these original tracks, who knows. But two years later Sherwood and Chris Garland, a friend from Cheltenham, were starting up a record company/agency in London’s Soho with the strange name of 4D Rhythms. The agency side of the business was to run acts like Dexy’s and Medium Medium, but they were also desperate to get some vinyl out on the street. In fact so desperate that Sherwood turned to the bunch of rhythms he had created a couple of years earlier, which up to that time he had considered quite "lame". They were up for transformation!Style Scott, in from Jamaica, did not so much overdub but played live over the original drum tracks from Charlie Fox. Freed from the stylistic requirements of the Roots Radics, Scotty was encouraged to loosen up and lay rolls and splashes all over the tracks in his now inimitable style. Six percussionists, that is the rest of the musicians and engineers and whoever was around the studio appeared phasing in and out of one channel, creating a trippy treble effect - which hid the fact that they were all out of time. Amongst these players was Sucker, a friend of Del from Osibisa, who occasionally gives the percussion mix a rich calypso feel. When the album was being mixed Chris was urging Adrian to get madder "more reverb, more delay ........". But nothing could be so mad as the idea to mix the tracks blind. That is - turn over the quarter inch tape on the deck and feed in the effects and run the mix backwards, turn it back over for the finished product and somehow it made a crazy kind of sense. So much so that the mix was finished in one day!On the original vinyl there was just one track listed for each side. The title track was credited as a "soundtrack from a forthcoming motion picture". One theory is that this little fantasy in the mind of Sherwood could very well have worked its way into the brain of one William Gibson, author of "Neuromancer" the classic debut cyberspace novel published in 1984. As reading that book now one can only hear Creation Rebel’s "Starship Africa" pounding out of the in-flight sound system on board the dread-crewed space tug Marcus Garvey.To conclude, I can think of no more appropriate recommendation for this album than the words with which the reggae don broadcaster, Dave Rodigan, greeted it at the time of its release "Adrian, what do you think you are trying to do to reggae .......?"

When you see a list like that in a mag like that you have to also think what labels took out the most advert space for $$ that year..
cuz thats how it works kids.
though seeing Creation Rebel on it is a surprise,
Cheers,
CS